


Glückssträhne

by StormXPadme



Series: "Tales Untold" & "Tales Beyond": (Don't) Need-to-know [10]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Caradhras, Comfort, Gen, Hypothermia, Minas Tirith, Sailing To Valinor, Superstition, Third Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28978776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormXPadme/pseuds/StormXPadme
Summary: Luck is not something one can control. But maybe you can court it.***While this oneshot is part of my main verse, it's not necessary to know any of the other parts to understand it.
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel & Legolas Greenleaf, Erestor/Glorfindel (Tolkien), Legolas Greenleaf & Pippin Took, Legolas Greenleaf & Thranduil
Series: "Tales Untold" & "Tales Beyond": (Don't) Need-to-know [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125545
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Glückssträhne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Inwiste](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inwiste/gifts).



> Created out of a tumblr meme of writing prompts by inwiste; prompt: "Touch for luck”.
> 
> *
> 
> Glückssträhne, die (German: Glück = luck | Strähne = strand of hair): a temporary series of happy coincidences

“ _You_ do it!”

“No, you do it! It was your idea!”

“And it’s _your_ second breakfast on the line. I told you not to bet, Pip. If we can’t prove it, you’ll be hungry for the next two days. And you’re insufferable when you’re hungry.”

“ _I am **not**_ ...”

“Now, you two, that’s enough. I told you to keep it down.”

When Aragorn’s warm, calm voice interrupted the excited bickering of two restless hobbits, Legolas quickly closed his eyes, stifling a grin. He could have listened to them for hours on end - their innocent levity was like a much-needed shower in a too-dry summer -, but Aragorn had made it very clear that Mithrandir and Legolas were supposed to use the lunch break for a nap, after almost a week of uninterrupted night watch since their departure.  
While the wizard was already breathing noisily a few feet below, propped up against the trunk of this very broad beech tree, with his hat deeply drawn into his face, Legolas had far too much on his mind to even try and get some rest. But he knew his old Dúnadan friend well enough to be sure, Aragorn wouldn’t order the Fellowship to carry on before he’d tried at least.  
Curiosity had always been second nature to him though, and the rest of the group was standing too close to his elevated spot up here to just shut his sharp elvish hearing off.  
Besides, he was dying to know who would come out of _this_ little argument on top.

“What’s this about anyway? You two have been whispering ever since we left Imladris.”

“Sam doesn’t believe me,” Pippin declared, audibly offended. “But my father used to tell me when I was a kid, and our family knows all about the big folks! I just need proof! Maybe I can just sneak up to the elf while he sleeps ...”

“I would advise strongly against it.” Legolas could hear the amused tone in Aragorn’s words as well as the underlying hint of cynicism - that fight in Mirkwood back then had been one that they both had barely made it out alive. “The last creature I saw trying to do that ended up with a dagger sticking from its throat.”

Pippin grumbled something unintelligible and started pacing the small clearing again, the rain-damp undergrowth rustling and cracking under sturdy Hobbit feet.  
“There must be _some_ way ...”

“You know, wild idea but you could just ask,” Merry suggested, munching on a last piece of apple from the opulent break meal.

“ _Ask_.” Pippin sounded as if his cousin had suggested he’d just walk up straight to Sauron himself and punch him in the dick. “Have you seen how he _looks_ at us?”

“Our elvish friend comes from a family where emotions are expressed in a very peculiar way, my friend.” Again that slightly cynical drawl in the Dúnadan’s sigh - Legolas’ father and he had never been exactly best friends. But there was also the soft cautiousness of deep compassion sounding through those discreet, brief explanations that Legolas had already come to appreciate Aragorn for shortly after their first disastrous meeting.  
“You should rather worry if they _smile_ at you in the Elvenking’s Halls. Then you’re either about to be imprisoned or pulled into a really bad trading deal. When you’re important enough to an elf of this family that they start brooding about you, it means there’s no place on Middle-earth you can’t be safer.”

“Anyway.” Pippin didn’t sound really convinced. “If I’m going to ask him if it’s true that touching elvish hair gives good luck, he’ll probably eat me.”

“Don’t worry. I heard Elves are vegetarians,” Gimli threw in from the side, little charming and little helpful as ever.

“Only when Dwarves are around, Master Gimli, I assure you.” Aragorn could hardly hold back the chuckle from his throat.  
“And that’s enough superstition for one day. Make yourself useful and collect some of those berries over there. And by the way, Pippin, if you really want to learn more about elves, I suggest starting with the basics. I can tell you for a fact, for example, that they usually only sleep with their eyes open.”

Legolas startled and cursed under his breath, ruefully blinking at Aragorn through a half-opened lid, the smallest of smirks tugging on his lips when he saw the hobbits stare at him from afar in embarrassment. He demonstratively turned to his side on the limb that hardly even creaked under his weight, to at least try what he’d been told to do for another ten minutes or so. They could never linger in any place too long, and his strength reserves were far from even being touched.  
But his heart had not been that heavy in decades, and for the first time since leaving the palace for Elrond’s council, he felt homesick.

“Why is Gandalf so afraid of the mines?”

After worrying for hours that they might lose the youngest member of their Company to frostbite, hypothermia, or sickness, it should have been a relief when Pippin finally stirred again in Legolas’ arms, finally breathing a little deeper and more even for the first time since they’d entered the shallow shelter of this little cave, to regather their strength before they could even think about leaving Caradhras behind. Unfortunately, the subject the hobbit chose was the last that Legolas was ready to talk about right now.

He was too glad that his young friend was finally doing better though to refuse him a conversation - as long as Pippin talked, he was awake and as long as he was awake, he would recover. Legolas wrapped Gandalf’s cloak a little tighter around the small, trembling body and pulled Pippin closer to his chest to allow his own, hardly faltering temperature to help stabilize the hobbit’s far too low one while Boromir thrust a big mug of tea into Pippin’s hand.  
“Those mines are going deep into the ground and much of them are unknown territory, Master hobbit. It’s easy to get lost there.”

Pippin slurped noisily on the acceptably warm drink, holding on to it tightly with his badly shaking hands. “Can’t be worse than here. I bet it’s at least warm there.”  
He looked back over his shoulder with a confused frown when it was suddenly Legolas, shuddering heavily. “What is it?”

“Not all heat is healthy, Pippin. There are creatures living down there very dangerous to anyone not watching their back.”

“Like what?” You couldn’t even rid a hobbit of their curiosity when they’d just barely escaped death.

Legolas saw from the corner of his eyes how Mithrandir shook his head at him in warning but chose to ignore it for the moment. No one could be sure that those unsettling rumors were true, that was right, but the little ones deserved to have at least an idea of what they were about to face.  
“Creatures of shadow and flame, bred Ages ago from nothing but hate and violence, and that is all they know.” Leaning back against the rough, uneven rock, suddenly feeling actually tired for the first time since starting on this quest, Legolas closed his eyes, not surprised that the first thing he saw on his mind was a glimpse of fabulous golden hair, a look of deep dismay and worry on a youthful, ethereally beautiful face.

His old close combat trainer had warned him about volunteering for this mission, and it had been these few brief words more than any lecture of Lord Elrond, any doubt from Aragorn and the bad conscience about how very worried his father must be for him right now, that had almost changed Legolas’ mind. For it had been Glorfindel who had not only told him that he might never come home again if he sought to destroy the Ring, never see his father again, but that when he might be brought back in another place far from everything he knew one day, his mother might not wait for him, seeing as she belonged to those who had chosen to stay and watch from the Halls of Mandos.

In the end, Legolas had said yes after all - loneliness was something he could deal with, he’d never known anything but in his life -, and death had never been something he was particularly afraid of. What tormented him in the few lonely hours when he was supposed to sleep, was the fear of _failing_. Of not being able to be there anymore for his friends, his father, his realm. Not being able to save this world anymore.  
With the prospect of entering a place possibly haunted by an enemy far beyond his battle skills, that fear had suddenly become very real.

“So ... Lord Glorfindel died fighting that thing ... because his hair was loose?” After hearing the tale of the fall of Gondolin, Pippin seemed at least a little more respectful regarding the path they had chosen to take next, and when he reached for the next mug of tea that Mithrandir had heated with a quick blow of fire, he wasn’t shaking that badly anymore. That was all that counted in the end, no matter how much recalling that particular memory of the day before their departure had hurt.

“If you ask Lord Elrond’s librarian, he’d probably huff about how his dumb lover was standing far too close to the edge of that cliff, too. But yes, basically.”  
Legolas returned Pippin’s quiet laughter and signaled him with a gentle squeeze of his shoulder that he should scoot forward to let Legolas get up, now that he was feeling better. It was about high time to check if any of his arrows had survived this ungodly weather.

He was only just busy drying the last shaft under his tunic and sharpening a slightly dull tip when his little hobbit friend sat down behind him, mirroring his gesture from earlier and started to comb through Legolas’ hair with still slightly clammy fingertips, without even asking.

“Better safe than sorry,” Pippin declared firmly, not a hint of his usual mirth in his green eyes when Legolas looked back at him with a frown, and held up a leather hair tie that Mithrandir must have given him.

The lump in Legolas’ throat was too big to answer but he suddenly realized, he hadn’t completely forgotten how to smile in the last three millennia after all.

Aragorn who had watched the whole scene from the side though, spoke up, pointing at Pippin’s surprisingly skilled braiding efforts with his half-lit pipe. “Besides, you know, it’s for luck.”

“I thought you said that was just stupid superstition.” Pippin tilted his head distrustfully.

The same shadow of unease that had Mithrandir brood quietly in his corner darkened Aragorn’s grey eyes, the chuckle died. “Alas, who knows? Your family knows all about the big folk, right? And the Valar know we can use all the luck we can get right now.”

“What are you doing all alone here, Master elf?” Pippin paused a few feet away from Legolas, shying from the hip-high wall protecting the tapered edge of Minas Tirith’s courtyard, understandably intimidated after having to watch the Steward of this land jump to his death here.

Legolas, born to a folk one with their environment by nature, couldn’t be scared so easily by height or the sharp wind blowing around his face, coming from the direction where Mordor lay. Besides, this was probably the only place in all of Minas Tirith where one could find some peace right now.  
But he didn’t have the heart to send his little hobbit friend away. Pippin had seen enough of grief in the last few days, he could use a few encouraging words, even though Legolas didn’t have an idea where to find them himself.  
“I’m not alone.” He nodded briefly to the very few stars that could be seen in the sky even through the mist of ash and death that was Sauron’s shadow. Then he went back to braid one of the seven thin strands of hair he’d cut from his neck earlier. Seven that should have been eight.  
“Did Aragorn send you?”

Pippin blushed a little and shrugged, caught. “He says, you should be sleeping. We’ll all need our strength tomorrow.” His voice faltered for a moment, his hand clenching around the thin belt around his hips, the gleam of his sword handle there. The hobbits were just as afraid as everyone, of walking straight up to Mordor tomorrow, but after hours and hours of discussion, they all had had to realize it was useless, trying to talk them out of it.

“Elves never need much sleep, don’t worry. Did Gandalf never tell you that?”

“Gandalf says, you’re full of it,” Pippin answered dryly. “Can’t fool me anymore, Master elf. Why are you never resting?”

Rolling his eyes, Legolas propped up his leg on the wall and shifted his weight to rummage for another leather tie in his breeches, to knot it to the end of the firm braid. When he reached for the next, he saw Pippin’s eyes that were following his movements go wide as his friend realized what it was that Legolas was using to make these special little bracelets.  
When the hobbit looked at his neck where another strong breeze was revealing a faint red glow of the jewel hidden there, Legolas quickly put up his collar. There were secrets in his life that even the Fellowship had no business knowing.  
“The night brings many unpleasant thoughts, Pippin. My mind needs to be free of all burdens if I’m not supposed to lose my focus. An archer has nothing but his focus, you know.”

"Tired eyes also lose focus.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as at the beginning of their journey anymore, to send an unwanted hobbit visitor away with a few mysterious words. “Merry and the Rohirrim, they rode through the night to get here, and look how many of them are dead now.”

Legolas couldn’t bring himself to tell Pippin that he didn’t expect any of them to survive the next few days either way and just shook his head with an uncertain smile before going back to work.  
“Why don’t you go to the Citadel kitchen? They should have some leftovers. Can't have a hungry hobbit going to battle tomorrow.”

Instead, Pippin overcame his fear with a jerk and sat down opposite to him on the wall with his arms crossed. “Aragorn _also_ said I should not let you get rid of me,” he explained with his jaw thrust forward when Legolas looked up in surprise. “And that _someone_ needs to look out for you, at least, seeing as the King has not even sent a message to ask about your fate.”

“We’ve arranged a full stop of communication when I left Mirkwood,” Legolas said defensively, in a reflex ingrained in his genes all his life, to apologize wherever he was going for the last member of his family remaining in these realms. “For the same reason, I’m trying not to let people know who I am. It’s safer for us both and for our people. Sauron has not forgotten Mirkwood.”

“Pigeons usually don’t talk, do they?” The look of anger and lack of understanding on Pippin’s soft features quickly turned to shame about his impudence when Legolas’ back stiffened, his face almost going as blank as at the beginning of their journey, when he had tried to keep his distance from his Ring Companions, afraid of failing his job to protect them when his mind was clouded.  
”I’m sorry. None of my business.” Pippin made a move to jump back to the ground and leave.

Legolas suddenly realized, he was sick of it. Whatever the fate of all of them would be, it would hurt either way. He shouldn’t be adding to the darkness weighing down on all their souls by pretending he hadn’t lost his heart to these people the moment they had left Imladris behind.  
“He doesn’t mean it, you know.” This time, it sounded more honest and less resigned. Legolas had long given up mourning or trying to change his father’s behavior. The only person who might be able to do that, they would only maybe see again one day if their path was to lead them west.  
Until then, they had to fight on their respective fronts alone, and in a way, it was easier for him than for Thranduil. Legolas was not petrified. He could still make this decision of letting the pain in, the worry, even the loss of saying good-bye to souls that he would not see again until the world would be renewed. Every smile of his companions, every glimmer of hope in their eyes, small as it might be at this point, was worth it.  
He could choose not to be alone anymore if he only found the courage.  
“My father has never learned how to handle grief. When my mother died, he shut out the world and forgot how to let it back in. We love each other, but hiding that most of the time is his only shield from his pain.”

“But that’s stupid.” This time, Pippin didn’t care about impertinence, which was a very refreshing change to Aragorn’s usually silent disapproval and Arwen’s and Elrond’s occasional over-protectiveness. “If you love someone, you need to tell them. What if you don’t and then something happens to them? I’m not _that_ naive, Master elf, I know we are probably going to die soon.” A tear or two glistened on a too pale, too thin face in the weak torchlight, but this time, his voice did not break. “I could never leave for Mordor without telling my friends how much they mean to me.”

“You know, I’m sure you’re right, Master hobbit.” Legolas had finally finished the last of the bracelets and slipped most of them in his pocket to keep them safe while looking out of the rest of the people to give them to. At least those who were within reach.  
Only the one he had finished first, he kept in his palm when he reached out for Pippin’s arm and pulled it close to tie the little gift around his wrists. “Just remember that not everyone in these realms uses the same language.”  
While his little friend was still staring at him dumbfounded, he slipped down from the wall and pulled the hobbit with him, pretty sure that his Companion would actually manage to topple over and fall if he let him out of sight for even five minutes. A little bit of elvish luck could only get you so far.  
“So, shall we go see what’s left of dinner?”

The growl of Pippin’s stomach was all the answer he needed.


End file.
